1783 Evacuation Day in New York celebrates the last shot of the Revolutionary War, a cannonball blasted at Manhattan from the deck of a British naval vessel as the last Redcoats left America. A young sailor, John Van Arsdale, climbed to the top of the flagpole, in the Battery, tore down the British colors, and nailed the Stars and Stripes to the top of the pole, Van Arsdale ensured that the British naval vessesl sailing out of New York harbor would have to do so under the American flag. When the British saw the colors, they fired a cannon ball at Castle Clinton, the last shot of the Revolutionary War. After the Treaty of Paris took hold, the British troops who had occupied New York City for nearly a decade loaded onto ships to head back to England. The British army evacuated New York and George Washington led his triumphant Continentaltroops into the city, where the flag was raised on what would become City Hall Park. Six years later, Washington was sworn in as the nation's first president, and after his inauguration at Federal Hall on Wall Street he walked to St. Paul's Chapel- which still stands to the south of the park- and gave a prayer of thanksgiving.
